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I started this piece with the intention of recreating a particularly pleasing aspect of another piece that I’d started but discarded; that being the wings and tail of the hawk. After they were laid in, the rest flowed very naturally. I’d intended to make this part of a larger composition (hence some of the lines run off the page), but that’s still a fantasy at this point in time. The imagery of the hawk’s head, tail, and wings reminds me of traditional art from the native people of Southeast Alaska (the Tlingits, Haidas and Tsimshians); hence the title.

This piece evolved over several weeks, and was created to honor both Philando Castile (who died at the hands of a police officer in St. Paul; the investigation is ongoing), and Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael Smith (all police officers who were viciously murdered by a gunman in Dallas.) In spite of the grim content, I’m satisfied with most of the technical aspects of this piece, notably the larger tessellation and the tadpole. I’m designing a unique frame for it that might require trimming the excess paper surrounding the main drawing. If I find the time to complete that project, I’ll post a photo of the results.

This piece took a while! The spring soccer season started (I coach two teams), plus I got laid off in the middle of producing it, so a lot of my spare (drawing) time got occupied with job-hunting. I’m pretty happy with how it came out – I like how I integrated my sig into the piece in a new way, and the realism elements look good. It honors Stephen Hawking, who (along with a number of other luminaries) is backing the Breakthrough Starshot project, an attempt to send small, light-propelled probes to another star system.

This piece honors the victory of the U.S. Women’s National Team in the Women’s World Cup of 2015. In particular, it celebrates the accomplishments of Carli Lloyd, who won the World Cup Golden Ball and the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, and scored a hat trick in the World Cup Final. I really enjoyed working on this, though it required a substantial amount of effort to complete. I’m especially happy with certain aspects that worked out well, such as the shading. There are a couple of weak points, but the overall effect is very satisfying.

This piece pays homage to Maya Ramirez, winner of the first Project Runway Junior design competition. Maya is a student at the Toledo School for the Arts, where one of my children is also enrolled. Unfortunately for Maya, I’m still experimenting with shading faces (I’m not especially thrilled with how her visage came out.) However, the model to the left is wearing one of her designs from the final episode at New York Fasion Week, and it looks reasonably pleasing to me. There are a number of other aspects of this piece I liked, so I’m calling it a keeper.

Side note: This was the first opportunity I’ve had to work with one of Strathmore’s higher-end papers. It’s impressive how much more readily the ink takes to the page; the flip side is that it’s hard to be patient enough to let it dry (there are a number of smudges that will attest to that.)

This is a piece I did a while ago, and it’s still a favorite. I used the Glaze series of pens from Gelly Roll to make some of the borders really pop, and I had to mix the inks on the paper before they dried to get the colors I wanted. The blending in particular was a huge hassle to get right, and filling in the large areas evenly with relatively small (and somewhat unpredictable) instruments wasn’t exactly easy, but I’m very pleased with the results.

This piece came out of a heartbreaking incident that’s too personal to go into, but caused me a great deal of distress; hence the subject matter. I especially like some aspects that were experiments in form and coverage (such as the flowers and vines.) Though I don’t think it’s my best work, it’s generally pleasing to me. If I were to do it again or come back to it, I might tweak the droplets to give them a bit more depth, and add some details to a few of the patterns.

This piece practically flew out of my pens. It was fun to experiment with the black paper, and I haven’t worked in color in quite some time; it was refreshing to do so. I like the variety of colors, and the intermingling of the Stardust and Metallic inks on the petals appeals to me as well, as it makes the flowers glimmer as the angle of reflection changes when the viewer moves. It’s unfortunately hard to capture in digital photos, but it’s very pleasing.

This is a small piece I did in my ‘thinking time’ at work. It was inspired by the holiday season, which coincided with the time I spent on it. I greatly enjoyed how it came out;the density of the presentation … Continue reading →